Expert Interview: Make Your Home Your Retreat — How Buyers Are Raising the Bar on What Home Performance Means

Today we’re fortunate to interview Cynthia Adams, Co-founder and CEO of Pearl, whose Pearl SCORE™ is the national standard for how homebuyers evaluate home performance. As more buyers enter into their search with questions about air quality, energy costs, and long-term comfort, we sat down with Cynthia to understand what’s driving the shift, and how Pearl is helping buyers, sellers, and agents navigate it. At The Springs Resort & Spa, we’ve spent decades creating healing environments where guests feel the profound impact of natural wellness: geothermal mineral waters, pristine Colorado air, and spaces intentionally designed for mind-body restoration. We’ve noticed that our most wellness-conscious guests, those who prioritize self-care, environmental quality, and holistic health, are increasingly asking questions about their homes’ performance when they return from retreat. We were eager to learn how Pearl’s five-pillar rating system (Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, Energy) is helping homebuyers find properties that support their health priorities 365 days a year, not just during weekend getaways.

Q1: Why are people starting to expect more from their homes in terms of air quality, comfort, and safety — and why now?

There’s a growing awareness that your home environment directly affects how you feel every day, and that the information to evaluate it has never really existed. For most of American history, you bought a home based on location, price, and how it looked. Nobody handed you a document that said: here’s how healthy the air is, here’s how efficiently the HVAC runs, here’s what this home will actually cost you to live in.

We see the shift clearly at Pearl. Buyers are coming to their home search asking questions they’ve never had tools to answer before: Will this home be comfortable year-round? Is this home prepared for common weather events in my area? They understand that how you feel day to day is determined by the environment you come home to every night, not just occasional escapes. And they’re starting to hold their homes to the same standard they hold everything else they invest in.

Pearl SCORE™ gives them a way to do that, evaluating homes across Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, and Energy. Not just how a home looks on a Saturday afternoon showing, but how it performs on an ordinary Tuesday.

Q2: How does a home’s indoor air quality and ventilation system affect the people living in it, and what can homeowners do to improve their daily air quality?

Many homes, especially in urban areas, carry a hidden air quality burden: off-gassing materials, inadequate ventilation, mold, dust, and cooking fumes all accumulate indoors in ways that outdoor air simply doesn’t. Your HVAC system is either sufficient or insufficient in mitigating this. Pearl’s Safety Pillar assesses a home’s exposure to risks like mold, radon, and carbon monoxide by verifying the presence of systems designed to mitigate them. The Comfort pillar evaluates whether the home can maintain livable temperature and humidity. And the Operations pillar covers the HVAC and ventilation systems that determine whether a home can actually deliver on both. 

The good news: improving home air quality is achievable. Homeowners focused on air quality often start with HEPA filtration or ERV/HRV ventilation systems, which bring in fresh air without sacrificing heating or cooling efficiency. Addressing moisture sources and choosing low-VOC materials during renovations can further reduce indoor pollutants. Buyers increasingly request home performance metrics, like air quality, ventilation, and thermal comfort, as part of their home search conversations. Pearl gives them the language and framework to ask the right questions.

Q3: Why does temperature consistency matter so much in a home, and what makes it so hard to get right?

Many people have experienced it: that one bedroom that’s always freezing, the living room that overheats in the afternoon, or a basement that feels damp no matter the season. These aren’t minor annoyances. When a home can’t maintain consistent temperature and humidity, your body is constantly compensating. Sleep suffers when bedrooms run too hot or cold. Allergies flare when humidity isn’t controlled. Energy bills climb while comfort doesn’t improve.

The culprits are usually invisible: inadequate insulation, inefficient windows, an HVAC system that’s undersized or poorly balanced, air leaks that undermine everything else. Buyers can’t see any of this during a showing.

Pearl’s Comfort pillar measures whether a home can maintain stable temperatures year-round without hot or cold spots, drafts, or humidity extremes. The Operations pillar covers the HVAC system itself, whether it’s properly sized, balanced, and functioning efficiently enough to actually deliver that comfort. In the real world, buyers are starting to ask the most important question of all: “Is this home actually going to be comfortable?” While they might not always use technical terms like “heat load” or “duct balancing,” that one simple question is really an inquiry into whether the insulation is sufficient and if the HVAC system is truly capable of handling the square footage of the home. The Pearl SCORE gives buyers a picture of how a home performs thermally before purchase, so they can ask the right questions and set realistic expectations before closing, rather than discovering surprises afterward.

Q4: How does Pearl’s five-pillar framework help buyers evaluate whether a home will actually support the way they want to live?

Buyers are looking for more than real estate listings showing square footage and granite countertops. They want to know: Will this home support my family’s health and wellbeing? Pearl’s five-pillar framework translates building science into language and actionable insights that matter. 

Safety pillar answers the question every family should be able to ask: Is this home healthy to live in? It covers the hazards that are invisible to the eye, indoor air quality, mold, radon, and carbon monoxide, but directly affect the people inside. Comfort pillar measures whether a home actually feels good to live in day to day, stable temperatures, controlled humidity, manageable noise levels, and natural light, the factors that quietly shape stress levels and sleep quality. Operations pillar reflects how much a home costs to run and maintain, because financial stress is its own kind of wellness issue, and unpredictable bills and surprise repairs take a real toll. Resilience pillar answers the question of whether a home can handle what’s coming, wildfires, floods, extreme heat, a dimension that’s increasingly critical as insurance costs rise and climate risks intensify. Energy reflects how ready a home is for the way people increasingly want to live, with solar, battery storage, EV charging, and the ability to participate in the grid rather than just depend on it. The Pearl SCORE™ rates a home’s current performance across all five dimensions, giving buyers an objective basis for comparison rather than guesses based on curb appeal.

Q5: How should homeowners think about the value of investing in home performance improvements?

Home performance improvements tend to be underappreciated because the benefits can be gradual rather than dramatic. Living in an underperforming home often leads to subtle compromises: working around drafty areas or ‘dead zones,’ noticing the constant operation of overtaxed systems, and making small adjustments to your routine to stay comfortable when the indoor climate feels inconsistent.

Improvements like better insulation, updated HVAC systems, or air quality upgrades typically involve meaningful upfront investment, but the benefits extend for well over a decade. Lower operating costs, more consistent comfort, and fewer unexpected expenses all contribute to a home that feels more manageable to live in.

Pearl SCORE™ helps homebuyers understand where a home currently stands across the five performance pillars. From there, they can make their own decisions about what to prioritize based on what matters most to them and their family.